A touch on the controls sent the flier climbing. Higher up, that flat dusty taste on the tongue vanished, the heat diminished—although not by much, by Krun!—and conditions improved. As far as I could see the rippling dunes of unsullied sand stretched away to the horizons.
From Makilorn due west, after passing Orphasmot, the only centers of settled habitation were the oases. I flew past two in relatively quick succession, Claransmot and Hanjhin, and then the desert showed nothing until I reached Taranik. Here I felt it necessary to descend to enquire after my friends.
The appearance of an airboat in this cut-off place aroused tremendous interest not unmixed with a quantity of religious superstition. Only for a few moments were vague fears that I might be mobbed by a panic-stricken and vindictive mob viable; then the Crebent Kuong had left in charge shouldered through the mob. He was a fine-looking man with a mop of black hair, a robe more bright yellow than ochre, and a large sword hanging at his side. His face showed the lines of care and authority. Quickly I made the pappattu and was able to give this T'sien-Fu news, for they were awaiting momentarily the arrival of the next caravan. He expressed regret that Queen Leone was dead, and in so hideous a manner, and said that he had heard of Kirsty, the new queen. He shook his head in ignorance of the whereabouts of his Lord, Trylon Kuong, knowing only that Kuong had gone to Makilorn. He'd never heard of Mevancy nal Chardaz, or of Llodi the Voice.
Although the absence of Mevancy was annoying, I felt relief that I wouldn't have to go through the same rigmarole with her as I'd had to suffer with Rollo. Crebent T'sien-Fu pressed me to accept the hospitality he could offer. As for the oasis of Taranik itself, do not imagine one of those little palm fringed water holes of the desert. The place was called an oasis because it was just that, a source of water in the desert; it stretched around a lake for something like twenty five by twenty miles. Taranik with its regular cultivated fields and herds of animals was much more like the great oases on the Silk Road of Central Asia.
In addition, and pleasantly enough, the people tended to wear brighter clothes than the utilitarian ochre desert robes. Their houses of stucco with thick walls and small windows reflected the tented dwellings of these folk when they'd been nomads. This made me think that the desert must have been the result of severe climatic disturbances. No nomads would be very happy wandering about the desert over which I'd just flown. Truly, the marvels of Kregen are never ending.
Many of the girls wore headdresses of silver coins threaded together. I gathered these were their dowries, handed down from mother to daughter. They were called, not altogether accurately, reedkhansixes, and the bright coins enhanced the bright liveliness of the maidens’ faces. There was a distinctly more brisk feeling here than back in the main areas of Tsungfaril.
All the same, I felt it would be criminal of me to stay, even for a short visit. Regretfully, I declined Crebent T'sien-Fu's kind offer and climbed back into the flier, observing the fantamyrrh as I did so, thinking that this simple everyday act would help to demystify airboats for these people. With the shouts of “Remberee!” ringing in the air, the voller sprang upwards and I shot her into a steep climb towards the west.
As I have remarked before, all of Kregen is not hostile and horrible; there are friendly simple folk to be found all over that marvelous world.
The desert waste to the west became, if it were possible, even worse.
Towards evening, with Luz and Walig declining ahead of me in sheets and streamers of flame, viridian and crimson vying to paint the sky in a welter of colors, I made out on the far horizon a dark streak all across the land. At the same time I realized that to obtain this flung paint-box of color required clouds. There were clouds ahead. And, if I was not too mistaken, that dark line, rapidly broadening as I approached, must be vegetation. As though to confirm on the instant those thoughts, the declining suns touched with streamers of fire the course of a river wending from the north across my path towards the south.
The geographical situation here, then, would be a reasonably usual one. On this eastern bank of the river—whose name I had been told varied along its length and was here called She of the Sundering—the desert would form a sandy fringe; on the western bank the irrigations and cultivations would begin.
Kregen's first moon, The Maiden with the Many Smiles, lifted at my back, flushed rosy pink in the last of the sunsets. She would curve around over my right shoulder and remain shedding her fuzzy pink light so that it would be somewhat difficult to call this night a time of darkness. In view of this I decided to press on.
In addition, the Twins would soon be up, and then it would be very light indeed.
Despite this abundance of night-time illumination, any good Kregen relishes plenty of light shining upon his doings—those who do not, for various reasons, clearly do not qualify. That gave me the ironic thought that I did not always relish the searching beam of light upon my activities, no, by Krun!
So I was not at all surprised to see the dots of fire shining up from the ground beneath.
Now I had to make a decision.
I was here to do a job. Because of the perils of the situation, that task entailed the taking of risks. There was no other way—at least, that I could fathom out—in which I could do what I had come to do without a certain amount of risk.
On that somber note I nosed the voller down.
I made a good landing on soft ground encompassed by many small bushes. I sat in the voller waiting for a bur or so and after about an hour of Earthly time had passed decided that none of the folk around the camp fires had seen the airboat descend.
Wearing desert robes, with swords strapped to my sides and a longbow over my back, I set off.
Because of previous experience I fancied I had a good idea of just who the people were around the camp fires.
The direction to take had been committed to memory, for down on the ground not a wink of fire was to be seen from the camp.
Here in Loh folk were still totally unused to the concept of air power.
And, as you will readily perceive, this thought did nothing to cheer me.
They were keeping a good lookout after their own fashion. Pink shadows ran before me, the bushes thickened and clumped, and a few trees lifted above the general level. I spotted a wink of metal in one tree. I could feel a lump in the dryness of my throat.
Halting, I called out: “Llahal, doms!"
A sharp voice rapped back: “Hold still! Do not move if you value your life!"
“Oh, I value it,” I called back. “Still, I trust you will not keep me waiting here long."
They rose from the ground before me. A rope whistled around my legs and before I could pitch over they'd grabbed me. Well, if you start off by taking risks, you must continue without flinching.
Carried along like a badly wrapped bundle I was hurried into the firelight where they could take a better look at me.
They were what I'd expected, and yet, subtle differences made me imagine—hope, even—that they were better than I'd expected.
They were desperadoes. That was perfectly plain. They wore old clothes, scraps of armor, were all heavily armed, men and women alike. There were many diffs among them although apims remained in the majority.
They did not share the lassitude of the folk of Walfarg, still enervated all this time after the loss of their empire, or the apathy of the people of Tsungfaril obsessed with their dreams of the paradise of Gilium. In connection with the hopes of Gilium it is worth remarking that if you had no real hope of ascending into paradise through crime you tended to be somewhat brisker than your co-religionists. This had been noticeable in the gang led by Kei-Wo the Dipensis in Makilorn. It was generally believed their hopes of salvation lay in some munificent amnesty of Tsung-Tan.
A lantern flashed in my face.
“Shove the shint up here where we can take a good look."
I was hoisted to my feet and plunked down on a bench. They crowded around, bristling with weapons, hairy, scaly, wa
rty, the light striking menacing reflections from eyes and teeth and fangs.
“By the Healing Spittle of the True Trog Himself! He's an ugly customer!"
The woman who spoke was bold and brassy, yellow of hair, swarthy of face, with enormous golden earrings. She wore a mail shirt and carried no less than three swords girt around her ample waist. Her feet, shod in good leather boots, and her legs, bare and brown, spread in an arrogant stance of accustomed command.
“Lahal, mistress,” I began politely.
“I am the Kovneva Layla nal Borrakesh and you call me my lady, or I'll have your tongue out!"
“My lady kovneva,” I said, again as politely as I could.
“Well, ragamo, tell us your name, where you're from and what you want spying us. After that we'll think of a way of sending you to the Death Jungles of Sichaz."
I shook my head. Ragamo—or ragama for a woman—is a kind of general insult usually employed when you're not sure if the person you are addressing is a real shint, or just a hulu or a fambly. Insults are nicely graded in Paz on Kregen. This kovneva employed the term to make sure I understood her position and power.
I said: “Far from spying on you I walked up and called out."
Someone at the back yelled: “He did, by the Lustrous Hair of the True Trog Himself!"
I went on: “I have come to Tarankar to kill Shanks."
That stopped them dead in their tracks. There was utter silence, broken only by the heavy breathing of this kovneva woman.
Presently, she said, in an altered voice: “Then you have come to seek your death, hulu. The Shanks rule all in Tarankar."
“So I am told. In my country we have fought battles with Shanks, and defeated them, killing many and forcing the miserable survivors to flee."
Shouts rose at this: “He lies! He lies!"
“We too have fought the Schtarkins,” she said when she could be heard. “We lost."
“Yet you are here, armed and armored. You are not slave."
“We have made a pact that we will all die sooner than that."
“That I well believe. But I must go on and discover things about these Fish Heads—"
“All that is necessary to know is to avoid them."
Continuing in as even a voice as I could contrive I went on speaking as though she had not interrupted.
“I need to know their strengths, their weapons, their airboats, their weaknesses—"
She gave a curt, hurtful laugh. “You mention airboats and then you prattle like a loon about weaknesses. The Shanks have no weaknesses."
“Yet we have beaten them in great battles."
“Well, they beat us in little battles."
I fixed my gaze on her, glaring into her eyes.
“Do you believe me, my lady kovneva?"
More shouts lifted at this, some for, some against. Layla nal Borrakesh sucked in a breath. “I must think on this. You will not be killed; at least, not yet."
A Khibil pushed forward, very arrogant, very superior. His clever foxy face with the bristling red whiskers was contorted into a snarl.
“My lady. Ask the shint how long ago he left the camp of Nath the Ron!"
A chorus of howls and shrieks followed this and the Khibil brushed up his whiskers in an access of self-confident cleverness.
The kovneva raised a hand and a modicum of quietness returned.
“Well, shint? When did you last see Nath the Ron?"
“Never heard of the fellow. Now, I really must—"
The uproar burst out again at this. It took no great genius to guess this Nath the Ron was the leader of a gang like the kovneva's and that the two were rivals.
The rope around me was becoming a nuisance. I took my left arm from the grip of the Brokelsh holding it and started to strip the rope away.
He tried to hit me. I lifted my left foot from the bench and kicked him—not too hard—on the nose, whereat he started a tremendous blowing and spluttering and, I am only half-sorry to report, a smidgen of blood dribbled down.
“He's escaping!” shouted the Khibil.
“I'm not, you stupid onker!” I bellowed at him.
The kovneva took a step back. The fellow grasping my right arm, a Thanko with a frizz of dark hair like a dirty mop and a long drooping nose, also stepped back, releasing me. I stretched. I looked at Layla nal Borrakesh and something of that old Dray Prescot Devil Look flashed into my face.
“Just listen, you bunch of famblys!” I used my foretop hailing voice. “I am here to fight the Shanks. I am not here to become embroiled in your petty quarrels. You can fight Nath the Ron if you wish. I cannot wish you well of it, for you and Ron Nath should join forces to help me fight and overthrow the Shanks until not a single Fish Head is left in Tarankar!"
Well, it was bombastic, boastful, things that are strange to Dray Prescot. I judged these things were needful at this time.
I suppose that just about the only thing in my favor was that I wasn't a Shank.
Indecision clouded Layla nal Borrakesh's face. Some of the others were arguing vehemently among themselves. Whatever they decided, I had decided that I would not hang about here. I'd make a run for it. Bowmen of Loh though many of them were, I'd damn-well outdodge their arrows.
The Khibil would have none of it.
He stepped forward as others stepped back, arguing. His whiskers fairly bristled up at me.
“I am Orlon Farantino, known as the Rekarder. You have not yet given your name or station. That is beside the point.” He tried to keep his voice even and icily menacing but the words tended to shrill out with the force of his passionate fury. “I say you lie, shint! You lie!"
“If you wish to fight me in the Hyr Jikordur you are going to be disappointed.” I spoke in a growly surly way, very contemptuous. “Keep your own station, Farantino, and don't stick your nose in where it's not wanted."
He gasped. One of his swords hissed from its scabbard. He rushed forward, face congested.
Somewhere the kovneva woman was shouting and people were yelling. The Khibil might be quick and strong; he'd certainly be clever. He tried to make a proper attack of it, holding his own anger in control so that he didn't just blindly hurl forward trying to stick me without finesse.
Very quickly I twisted and slipped that thrust, trapped his sword arm between my arm and side, reached down and grasped his throat in my other hand. I twisted his arm a trifle, and squeezed his throat a little. The face that had been black with anger transformed under the torchlights into an interesting color, of old boots, and beetroots, and moldy cheese.
I spoke directly into that remarkable visage.
“You ask my name, dom. I will tell you, so that you may not forget. Or, I shall tell you the name you are permitted to know.” His mouth was hanging open, the bottom lip loose, and spittle drooled down. I gave him another shake, just to remind him. His free arm remained dangling—he was a Khibil and was clever enough to know what would happen to him if he tried to use that free arm and fist to hit me.
“I am Chaadur na Dorfu, known as Chaadur the Striker, Kurinfaril.” The bench gave me height over the others and I stared around as I spoke this name, having no difficulty inventing it on the spot, as I had used the name Chaadur on previous occasions. I put venom into my voice. “You call me master, lord, lynxor, prince; you do not speak until you are given permission."
I threw him away.
Well, as I stared around at those emotion-filled faces in the lights of the fires and the torches and saw the glitter in eyeball and on teeth and fang, saw the fists curling around sword hilts and bowstaves, well, I said to myself, Dray Prescot, my boy, you've put on a good show—but is it good enough? Is this the time to run?
The question was immediately made superfluous.
A woman stumbling in her skirts ran into the firelights, screaming, screaming. “Nath the Ron! Nath the—” She tumbled forward and everyone could see the tall feathered shaft sticking up from the centre of her back.
* * *
The scattering of these outlaws took place in the twinkling of an eye. One minute they were clustered about me standing on the bench and the next the firelight shone upon trampled grass and camp impedimenta.
An arrow went flick! past my ear, so the time had come to depart.
As I ran away from the nearest fire the sounds of combat flowered up beyond a clump of trees ahead. I had absolutely no desire to get mixed up in this petty squabble—as I had told these people—so I angled away from the trees, making for a line of bushes.
Of course, I had chosen the bushes where Nath the Ron's Bowmen were lurking.
Half a dozen arrows flew past, for I was dodging and jinking. The situation had abruptly turned sour. By Vox, I could get myself killed here!
In the open as I was, it would be foolish to turn around and run off in the other direction. The firelight would pick me up and the shafts would unerringly find their target. I hauled out my sword, whirled it over my head—just the once, just to reinforce the image of Chaadur the Striker, Kurinfaril—then went slap bang into the bushes.
The sword flicked three arrows away in the superb discipline of the Krozairs of Zy. Now I could see the Bowmen, stumbling back through the gaps between the bushes, trying to nock arrows and shoot me at the same time they wanted to run off. I let rip a roaring brutish fantastical kind of shout, a scream of berserk anger, and charged.
The archers scampered off, and two of the famblys dropped their bows.
Quickly hauling up and looking about I saw men and women struggling past the line of bushes, rushing at one another, a maddened mob of crazies fighting in a confused melee, a crowd of mob anger.
I felt the distaste. This was no place for me. Carefully looking about, for I did not want a hidden archer to shaft me, I started to edge off out of the firelight. At one time I'd imagined these outlaws would prove of value. Well, they still might. As of now they were useless. If they did not exterminate themselves first, the Shanks would surely catch up with them. Those camp fires...
Scorpio Invasion [Dray Prescot #40] Page 11